Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hiya! I'm interested in starting this game, got the rules and various army books and have been reading the rules and I think I got the basics with some understanding of the advanced rules. My questions were can this game be played with just 1 warband so I can practice playing the game? Which would also lessen the blow to my wallet lol another question is do I lose much using a standard captain instead of using a named hero I.e. using a minas tirith captain vs king Aragorn?

Thanks in advanced

 Cptskillet wrote:
Hiya! I'm interested in starting this game, got the rules and various army books and have been reading the rules and I think I got the basics with some understanding of the advanced rules.

Welcome to one of the best games GW ever published!

My questions were can this game be played with just 1 warband so I can practice playing the game?

Sure! The game scales pretty well, allowing you to run as small as a single character up to multiple warbands. The upper limit really depends on your tolerance for dealing with individual movement and combat but 3-4 warbands is pretty easy to handle.

do I lose much using a standard captain instead of using a named hero I.e. using a minas tirith captain vs king Aragorn?

I think the thing you lose with only fielding generic heroes is the extra Might, Will and Fate that named characters typically bring to the game. Use of these points can be key to effective tactics and more points give you more chances to experiment with their use. Of course generic heroes are much cheaper and I generally use a mix of named and un-named heroes in larger games.

Awesome thanks for the response! So really it's just some extra abilities the named heroes bring with them vs standard leaders.

One of the best purchases you can make to get started in LOTR is a Commanders box and a box of Warriors.

For example, this is an iconic and easy way to start LOTR:

Gondor Commanders box + Warriors of Minas Tirith. Gives you a generic captain, a banner bearer, hornblower, plus a cool Knight of the White Tower. 4 spearmen + 4 swordguys so you can learn supporting rules, and 4 bowmen w/ good shooting.

Mordor Orc Commanders box + Mordor Orcs. Again, a generic captain, a banner bearer, but this time a taskmaster and a shaman so you can learn magic. And orcs with a variety of weapons!


From there you can add some allies.

either
Rohan Commanders box + Warriors of Rohan,
or,
Rohan Captain blister pack, Rohan Banner blister pack, and Riders of Rohan set, so you can play with some cavalry

and Morannon Orc Commanders box + Morannon Orcs. Tougher orcs, with a generic captain, banner bearer, shaman, but a drummer in this set. And heavy Morannon orcs!


From there you'd have a good Kingdoms of Men force - Gondor and Rohan - and a tough little Mordor evil army. Maybe add a troll to the Mordor force to even out the points a little

Then add named heroes to taste!

It's funny you mention that cause that's what I was thinking lol but I thought it was just 3 bows per warband? Unless I'm mistaken anyway.

Up to a third of the models in your army as a whole can have bows (or other ranged weapons), but that doesn't apply on a per-warband basis, so if you had two Warbands of 6 Swords and 6 Spears each (so 24 guys total), you could then have a whole warband of just Archers.

In fact, this is often the best way to go, putting your archers in one warband and your fighters in another means you can deploy them separately, which is generally better.

 Paradigm wrote:
Up to a third of the models in your army as a whole can have bows (or other ranged weapons), but that doesn't apply on a per-warband basis, so if you had two Warbands of 6 Swords and 6 Spears each (so 24 guys total), you could then have a whole warband of just Archers.

In fact, this is often the best way to go, putting your archers in one warband and your fighters in another means you can deploy them separately, which is generally better.

It depends IMHO, in smaller points games like sub-500 I like to deploy mixed warbands so like 4-5 sword/2h and 4-5 spear and a couple of bowmen to support. As you'll tend to be spread over the board a bit more over a 4x4 board.

So i bought the gondor commanders set, and warriors of minas tirith, which has 12 soldiers, 4 with bows, 4 with spears, and 4 with sword/shield. i can keep 4 of them with bows since it's 1/3? or only 3 with bows? also i seem to be confused about resolving fights. units have a fight value, common 1 for man sized warriors is around 3, so lets say an orc has a fight of 4 and a man has 3 fight, dice are rolled and it's a tie, does who ever have the highest fight win the combat? in that case if the man rolls higher, even if the orc has higher fight, does the man win?

edit: since the knight of the white tower is a hero, can i use him by himself? and the banner bearer/warhorn warrior can be included in the warband via upgrades?

It's a third of your force total (rounded up), so with what you have you can use all 4 bows. assuming you use at least 8 other models.

You're correct about the fighting, the Fight values only matter if the highest die scores are equal (in which case the higher Fight wins), otherwise whoever rolls the highest single die wins. In the case of multiple attacks on one or both sides, simply take the highest result from each side, don't add them or anything.

Example: Aragon (Fight 6, 3 Attacks) vs 2 Orcs (Fight 3, 1 Attack each)

Aragorn rolls 2, 5, 6, the Orcs roll 2, 3= Aragon wins as he has the highest single score
Aragorn rolls 1, 3, 5, the Orcs roll 1, 6= Orcs win as they have the highest single score
Aragorn rolls 2, 3, 3, the Orcs roll 2, 3= Aragorn wins as the highest scores are equal and he has a higher Fight stat

Yes to both the Knight and the Upgrade questions, so an example force with what you have would be

Warband 1- 13 models (maximum is 12 Warriors and 1 Hero, so this is 'full')
- Gondor Captain, Heavy Armour, Shield
- 3x Warriors with Shields
- 3x Warriors with Spears and Shields
- 1x Warrior with Banner
4x Warriors with Bows

Warband 2- 4 models
Knight of the Tower
1x Warrior with Horn
1x Warrior with Shield
1x Warrior with Spear and Shield

Basically, the first Warband is your main fighting element, the second is the Knight to go hero/monster hunting, the horn to buff your guys and the spare warriors to plug any gaps that appear in the first Warband, or bodyguard the Knight if need be.

Thank you Paradigm!!! this cleared up everything for me

And once deployed, there is no "unit coherency" - your guys can go wherever they are needed!

Yes, the Duel is designed so that even the lowliest models can still have a chance to strike even heroes. But heroes can use Might to buff any dice they roll, so in the example above, Aragorn, in the losing example, could use a point of might to buff his "5" to a "6" and then tie, which then goes to Fight values, and then he wins, and gets his attacks score as "strikes" against his enemies. You do one strike at a time as well.

So aragorn has 3 attacks, and i would resolve 3 attacks one at a time? so he could wipe out 3 warriors if he's lucky enough?

 Cptskillet wrote:
So aragorn has 3 attacks, and i would resolve 3 attacks one at a time? so he could wipe out 3 warriors if he's lucky enough?

Correct, the terminology is thus:

You fight a Duel, where you roll a number of dice equal to your Attacks. Whichever side has the highest dice roll, wins. On a tie, the highest Fight value wins.
Then each Attack makes a Strike, using Strength versus Defense.

Hope that clarifies it. Aragorn would roll all three of his dice against those two orcs who are in base to base, and the orcs roll two dice (one per model). If Aragorn wins, he gets all of his attacks as strikes, and rolls them one at a time. If he kills the first orc on the first strike, and the second orc on the second strike, his third strike is "wasted" (I guess he poses and looks suitably heroic)

So yup Aragorn could kill all the orcs if he's a little lucky.

Then there's fun special things like Support troops - those with spears or pikes, that add an extra Attack at their Fight and Strength value if they are in base contact with the model they are supporting but not actually in the Duel. In this way you can have models in heavy armor and shield in the front, and a model with a spear behind them in base contact, givingn them the bonus Attack in the Duel (and perhaps a bonus Attack to Strike if the Duel is won!)

It's worth reading over the close combat rules a couple times, there are some important bits, especially how multiple models cannot gang up on multiple models - you pair off Duels.

Also, control zones are very important! SBG becomes a game of maneuvering and movement is highly tactical.

Yeah, once you've won the fight, you can divide your attacks between any enemies in that fight. That could be one each, all on one, or split any other way. So yeah, you could feasibly Wound as many enemies as you have Attacks.

Oh and one more thing:I don't have the link on me but look up the Hobbit grand tournament 2017. There's an updated set of scenarios that have been tweaked.